And You Will Find Love

Mohave, California, Winter-Spring 1936

Over the next six months and more, Barbara worked harder than she ever had before, not only getting the airport in shape to reopen but because she needed every dime she could earn. She needed to pay the rent, eat in restaurants because she didn't have a kitchen at Ma Phelps's boarding house, and for life's other essentials like nail polish, cologne, and a weekly visit to the nearest beauty parlor, which was a bit of a drive away in Bakersfield.

To accomplish all that, she took on a number of jobs. She was determined to make a buck any way she could that was both reasonably honest and moral, considering how the world turned.

First, she became a night waitress at the Jackrabbit Cafe, which gave her a small salary, sometimes more than small change in tips, and three almost free meals a day.

She liked to eat, but eating also relaxed her. She didn't have to worry about putting on weight because she was very active working from one morning to the next in one job or another. She also kept trim dodging truck drivers', farmers', and local male diners' errant fingers as they tried to pinch the butt she was working off.

Getting the idea from Leila, she started a home and business cleaning service, cleaning tired housewives' floors and offices around Mohave and Tehachapi. She also advertised in the weekly Mohave Mail newspaper for another business she found there was a need, and called it "Fast Delivery, Do-It and Fix-It." In that business, she ran errands and made deliveries in her Ford V-8 coupe, mowed laws, repaired bicycles, rewired lamps, sharpened knives, and even cared for a bed-ridden elderly woman. When the job called for two more hands, she usually got them from Leila, for a 50-50 split on the pay.

Barbara carefully omitted her name from the ad because she didn't think local men would hire her. At first, she got most of her work from their wives. That soon changed as the men saw she could do the work she advertised. They also liked having a beautiful young woman around their house or workplace who wore tight bluejeans.

Soon she was seen so often like a cyclone around that part of the county, Barbara added a word to the front of her business' name, since that was what folks began calling her. It was thereafter known as LIGHTNING FAST DELIVERY, DO-IT, FIX-IT.

Barbara also entered every contest she could find in the newspaper and on radio. She won a few radios, sets of tires, pots and pans, and coupons or gasoline and other items she then sold at 25 percent off their retail value.